Film Review: Batman Begins

A great beginning for the Dark Knight
by: Rianne Hill Soriano
from http://www.yourinternetlifestyle.com/
http://www.yourinternetlifestyle.com/innerpages/article.asp?mm=moviesmusic&id=85
Date: 6/13/2005 2:57:39
By: Rianne Hill Soriano

Starring: Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Michael Cane
Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Batman Begins explores the origins of Bruce Wayne’s (Christian Bale) emergence as Batman and brings back the essence of what drives him to be who he is. This story goes back to the roots of the character, portraying a confused and angry Bruce Wayne who rises to redeem himself and defend Gotham. Human emotions as love, fear and anger begin a new face for the Dark Knight as a cinematic and yet realistic film. This makes his character more human than the rest of the Batman films of the past – this time, the film justifies the idea that Batman is still ‘just a man’ under the black costume, still has his vulnerable side, gets bruises, feels pain – not just any superhero without a decent human past to show.

Director Christopher Nolan bases this film in reality and makes it focus on Bruce Wayne’s descent into the masked crusader. It focuses on the back story of the young, disillusioned Wayne who gets the trauma of his parent’s death, to his revenge and fear-stricken years of training at the Asian prison and the League of Shadows, to his immersion to the nasty crime and poverty scenes of Gotham, until his final preparations to become the soon-to-be legend Batman.

Fear as a universal emotion that is one of the hardest to conquer evolves along with Bruce Wayne’s character in the story. Vengeance contributes to the dark and emotional side of it. And along with the anger, thirst for justice and struggle from various crime and poverty problems, these negative forces turn up as challenges for him to become the hero he is about to be born – seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. Even the scenes with the bats themselves finally get across the idea of how scary they can be – both literally and figuratively.

Wayne uses his strength, his skills, his intellect and his wealth to become Batman. The story introduces the whys and hows this time, not just making the Bat mobile suddenly pop out of nowhere without knowing its ultimate source. Its technology may be fantastic and really ambitious, but it's believable enough still… who knows, such might be possible in a few decades time or so. There is that emotional bond between him and Alfred (Michael Caine), his trusty butler. A former friend of his father, the tech genius Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), becomes the answer to his “techie” needs to be the savior of Gotham, the city under the weight of great corruption and crime. He acquires his body armor, gadgets and equipment to make him fly like a mysterious, scary bat around the streets of Gotham from him. Lucius and Alfred play important roles guiding Wayne with knowledge, gadgets and the heart for things. Wayne comes up with ideas and the complete development of his symbol and costume through their help. Understanding where they all have come from, the emotional baggage, the background training, the Bat mobile, Bat signals, and everything about Batman, all become more acceptable.

The firm, authoritative, imposing and naive Ducard (Liam Neeson) recruits Wayne to the shadow-ninja clan led by Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). A man driven by anger, he mentors Wayne with thoughts including: "Your anger gives you great power, but if you let it, it will destroy you;" "To conquer fear you must become fear;" and "Devote yourself to an ideal.” The training strengthens Wayne physically, emotionally, intellectually and psychologically, and he gets into his senses and builds up his own individualistic philosophies, which becomes far from what the clan tells him so – he readily matures and realizes it is time to go back to Gotham and defend it from its own menaces, along with Ducard’s group.

Batman's first mad nemesis, the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), has that great charisma on screen. His development from being Jonathan to the thorough unleashing of his bad side as the Scarecrow paves way to a good character development. Wayne also makes a connection with the young Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), one of the only straight cops in the city. Katie Holmes looks like a teenager playing grown-up. The problem is not merely with her overall performance, but simply because she looks like a teeny-bopper movie actress still while portraying the role. Ironically, the poor character aging for Alfred is another problem then. Since the death of Wayne’s parents to Wayne as a full-fledged Dark Knight, there is no much change on his physical appearance, same old, responsible and concerned butler and friend to the Waynes.

The action-packed scenes start from the middle as Batman has finally been born. But the fight scenes aren’t too well choreographed, or maybe it’s not just with the choreography, but with the editing and the wrong chops, which makes the choreography look not that good on screen. The juxtaposition of cuts is not too well for built up for emotions and action thrills. It lacks distinct focus as the camera angles are too tight on the action and edited too quickly that much of the details tend to be lost.

The story is intense, gripping and dark. There is an interesting story development. Nolan’s treatment brings about this certain psychological element that Batman fans can enjoy. The tone of the film stresses a serious Batman film, more likely to be appreciated by those who have grown up with the Batman films of decades ago and has now grown up to be great adult Batman fans. With the children of the present, it is still to be enjoyed but in a more realistic fashion than the idealistic way as the past good Batman film as that of the great Tim Burton. Burton’s Batman was expressionistic, cartoony and idealistic in many elements, hence, more enjoyable to the kids’ eyes.

Batman Begins (which still retains that comic book mood and is still filled with a myriad of gadgets and movements) is the most emotion-filled Batman movie to date. Here, Batman is the film's star. It does not fall into the prey of using too much special effects to come up with great visuals by getting too focused on the various capabilities of the villains and the machines, but it provides great attention to the questions on the emergence of Bruce Wayne and Batman. The character’s vulnerability is much more present. Every bruise, every scare, every concern, every emotion seems real and human. All these have been greatly weaved by Nolan, a director of the dark films as this prequel… Batman Begins will be one classic Batman movie.